Loading ...Local author shares perspective on Chaldean community
A strong motivation to write flew into Weam Namou’s mind one day when she was at the U.K.’s Heathrow Airport in the 1990s. As an Iraqi-American woman, that desire came from an urge to tell her perspective of her culture and homeland.
“I entered a bookstore and found a rack of novels,” she said. “They all had veiled women (on the covers). … Although there are such women in the Middle East — just as in other places in the world — that wasn’t the life I lived, and that wasn’t the place I came from. And the community I’m amongst, that’s not their lifestyle.”
Today, Namou, 44, from Sterling Heights, is an author and Chaldean News journalist who most recently released her sixth book, “Iraqi Americans: Witnessing a Genocide,” in July. The book explores everything from her thoughts and reaction to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to metro Detroit’s humanitarian response to the Islamic State’s recent devastating campaign in the war-torn country.
Namou said she and her family fled Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and came to the U.S. in 1981 when she was 10 years old. She first lived in Shelby Township, but then moved to Sterling Heights.
She said she enrolled in Utica Community Schools, adding that her family wanted her to “acclimate to the American lifestyle.” She later became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1990.
Upon graduating from Wayne State University in 1992, she chose to be a full-time writer rather than pursue a law career. She said her reasons extended beyond wanting to write about Iraq and her culture, but after the Heathrow incident, she took the idea of writing true-life stories even more seriously.
“I wanted to be a writer very early on,” she said. “I was planning to write, but they always tell you, ‘Write what you know.’”
When the 2003 Iraq War took place, Namou’s opportunities to tell the kind of real-life stories that she wanted to share grew.
“A lot of magazines and newspapers actually reached out to me,” she said. “I just started getting jobs to write articles.”
Namou’s years of writing history include nonfiction, fiction and poetry. Recently, she has been working on a book series called “Iraqi Americans.”
Her first book in the series, “Iraqi Americans: The War Generation,” was published in June. It concerned the challenges faced by people who survived and fled the 2003 Iraq War and its aftermath.
Her latest book, “Iraqi Americans: Witnessing a Genocide,” is largely about the metro Detroit community’s humanitarian efforts to help the Iraqi people after the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, took over large parts of the country in 2014. The Islamic State began a widespread persecution campaign against minority groups like Christians and Yazidis.
Namou said the latest book includes a major anti-Islamic State protest that took place near 17 Mile and Ryan roads in Sterling Heights in 2014. She said people in metro Detroit who were interested in helping the refugees included the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce, Bishop Francis Kalabat and the charitable group Help Iraq. She said some local Muslims also joined the humanitarian efforts.
“A lot of people who have not been to Iraq in over 30 years or more started doing humanitarian work,” she said.
Namou said “Witnessing a Genocide” describes the city of Sterling Heights and its administration’s bridge-building efforts with the local Chaldean community, particularly within the last year. She said the schools and city officials, including City Manager Mark Vanderpool, showed how much they care about Iraqi-Americans through their outreach.
“Not only is it a large Iraqi-American Chaldean community, it’s a very healthy community,” she said. “We’re so lucky to live here, coming from an oppressed country. And here, we’re so embraced.”
According to Vanderpool, he has met Namou at a couple of meetings and found her to be very personable and intelligent. He considers her, like other reporters, to be important stakeholders in the community.
“I’ve since had a chance to review her articles, and she is a very good writer, as well,” he said. “She does a very good job representing the Chaldean community. … I consider her to be a great ambassador for Sterling Heights.”
“Iraqi Americans: Witnessing a Genocide” is available on Amazon.com. Find out more about Weam Namou by visiting www.weamnamou.com or www.CulturalGlimpse.com.
Source: www.candgnews.com